What Are Your Thoughts on Hiring? – Ask JP #090

Hello, it’s an episode of Ask JP. A question I had just a couple of days ago was how do you hire? What are your thoughts on hiring people?
There’s one thing that I’ve embraced over the last couple of decades, and that was I love to hire underdogs. I love having the opportunity to bring people on that have something to prove, something to overcome, maybe even a bit of a chip on their shoulder.  Here’s the opportunity when you do that.
One, I think you’re doing the right thing, you’re doing something noble, you’re giving someone a second chance, and you’re starting with a substantial deposit in that person’s emotional account.
Secondly, if you’re bootstrapping your business or just starting, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to land the blue chippers.  The blue chippers go to Alabama and Oklahoma if you’re recruiting, and in effect, this is kind of a Moneyball game. You’re trying to get the most value for your startup dollars, especially if you’re just bootstrapping the business. This is the business version of Moneyball, I’m looking for the diamonds in the rough.
The third thing is the people that are underdogs may have had some ups and downs in their career.  They could have been in a rough spot because the average business doesn’t train, coach, or have a good culture. You’re going to benefit from building that in your company because folks that may not have flourished in one environment will flourish in yours. Often, it’s on the company, that the person wasn’t successful.
Finally, as you grow, you’re going to learn more and more that this is a people business. As your business expands, you’re going to spend more time on personnel issues, almost all the time. That’s where you’re going to live. But that’s why it’s so important to spend some time intentionally hiring early, cultivating, bringing people along.
The best folks that I’ve ever worked with are those that we gave a second chance to, and we brought them through a system and the relationship, and the work product was extremely rich. So that’s how I would get started, and I’m still learning about it every day. Best wishes. Thanks for watching.